Is Silicon Valley Morally Bankrupt and Toxic? 469
concealment sends this quote from a post about how the goals of many tech companies are at odds with what's good for consumers:
"Since I've been out of the Silicon-Valley-centered tech industry, I've become increasingly convinced that it's morally bankrupt and essentially toxic to our society. Companies like Google and Facebook — in common with most public companies — have interests that are frequently in conflict with the well-being of — I was going to say their customers or their users, but I'll say 'people' in general, since it's wider than that. People who use their systems directly, people who don't — we're all affected by it, and although some of the outcomes are positive a disturbingly high number of them are negative: the erosion of privacy, of consumer rights, of the public domain and fair use, of meaningful connections between people and a sense of true community, of beauty and care taken in craftsmanship, of our very physical well-being. No amount of employee benefits or underfunded Google.org projects can counteract that. Over time, I've come to consider that this situation is irremediable, given our current capitalist system and all its inequalities. To fix it, we're going to need to work on social justice and rethinking how we live and work and relate to each other. Geek toys like self-driving cars and augmented reality sunglasses won't fix it. Social networks designed to identify you to corporations so they can sell you more stuff won't fix it. Better ad targeting or content matching algorithms definitely won't fix it."
For the umpteenth time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Betteridge's law of headlines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states:
"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no". ...
"The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bollocks, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines [wikipedia.org]
As for the article's content:
A great discovery!
The author has finally also found out that their customers are the advertising firms, their 'users' are the product they sell.
Film at 11.
The rest is some pseudo-socialist rant.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
you dont have to be republican to vote for your corporate overlords
If other people want what you want (Score:5, Insightful)
then it will happen. Companies that survive do so by providing something that people want and something that people will pay for (sometimes the two are split, like Facebook).
If other people don't want what you want, accept it, and don't blame Silicon Valley.
Is it broke? (Score:4, Insightful)
Holy rant...
Here's another idea, it's not broke.
Dude. It's your fault (Score:5, Insightful)
You were the one who wanted all this great content for free (as in beer). By "you", I mean the opinions expressed here on Slashdot, especially when the topic comes to copyrights and file sharing laws. Google and Facebook are doing things "the right way", by that reckoning, but yes there is the darker side of which you speak.
How is Google supposed to pay 30,000 engineers, 1M rack-mounted x86 systems, and still hit their quarterly earnings and revenue targets? And the same for Facebook.
Only Amazon has a traditional business model, but even they are leaders in mining content about their users as well as their traditional IP inventory.
Short answer no, (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone who lives in the NYC tri-state... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me tell you, if you want to see toxic check out Wall St. and it's satellites in NJ and CT. At least Silicon Valley creates cool shit that make people productive and/or entertained. Wall Street produces nothing, it just sucks value out of the economy and puts it in overseas tax shelters. it sounds to me like you're burned out from living in the center of a capitalist vortex. Take some time off and go live in Massachusetts or Oregon or something and decompress. I would kill to work at a place like Apple. I don't care if it means 90 hour weeks, you got something more important to do than develop the next generation of computing technology?
Re:Is it broke? (Score:1, Insightful)
How do you figure?
Nothing is broken except how you see things (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee, I'd love to see a world where Intel, Dell, IBM, HP, TI and a host of other companies never existed. Yea, we'd be better off without GE, Ford, General Motors, Exxon and the like. Would not need any hackers in Silicon Valley, much less silicon. Just forget the transistor, integrated circuits or microprocessors ever existed.
Capitalism may have it's flaws, but it is better than any previously tried system over the last 6,000 years of recorded history. Please let's not repeat any of them!
Social Responsiblity (Score:4, Insightful)
The era of socialism as it defined in the dictionary is dead in America. The idea of noblesse oblige, and societal responsibility are not only forgotten in minds of those who control the wealth in this country, but spit upon as if it were a curse. Too many Americans today feel that wealth redistribution by the state should be abolished, as they are quick to scapegoat the needy in light of this country's ills. It is this undercurrent of disregard for our fellow countrymen that is showing all over the place in the attitudes of the Haves, in today's politics and even something so basic as getting a job.
America needs to wake the hell up and realise that helping each other, taking responsibility for one's actions, and working for the common good are the cornerstones of civilization. Throw them out, and all you will have is barbarity and all that implies.
Re:Is it broke? (Score:0, Insightful)
This story is nothing more than typical socialist cliches. Evil corporations. Evil capitalism. Look at how smart I am because I can quote marxist cliches.
Compare your "poor suffering" western/capitalist lives to those of people who didn't have a free market capitalist society. Infact, why dont all these marxists pack their things and move to Cuba, Venezuala or central Africa and that way they can live their dream.
Typically society stays on course (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:5, Insightful)
er... positing a question on a discussion forum is a generally acceptable way of starting a discussion on said forum
If the Silicon Valley is toxic ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... well ...
Please stop using the PC / Tablets / Smartphones - for many of the hardware were designed in Silicon Valley
Please stop using many of the software that you are using - including technologies that enable you to surf the Net
Without the Silicon Valley - and many of its offspring around the world - the author of TFA can whine all he wants, on a column on his local newspaper - if the editor of his local newspaper grant him a column, that is
Re:Stopping road deaths is a "geek toy"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone wise said this on slashdot earlier to the topic - Society can cope with serial killers, but parallel ones are a different cup of coffee entirely. Imagine the result of a software flaw or a malicious intervention where twenty cars do the same fucking stupid thing on an interstate highway. Sure, people fuck up all the time, but at least there, the probabilities of them doing so are fairly independant, and they can adapt to a messup better than software.
Re:Nothing is broken except how you see things (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the article, it's not about that at all. It's about _new_ Silicon Valley: the startup culture. This is massively different to the culture that existed when Intel, Dell, IBM, HP and TI were founded.
Those companies are all fairly traditional companies in organization and goals. They were typical old-school American corporate structures built to achieve modern results. HP wasn't crowdfunded, hyped into a bubble and then pushed into an IPO to make the founders and a couple of venture capitalists into multi-millionaires. It was a long-term endeavour built around providing serious engineering for serious ends. It wasn't a get-rich-quick scheme.
This article is more about the culture of quick-hit startups in Silicon Valley these days, which are built more around buzz, hype and marketing vapidity than they are around serious engineering or any kind of long-term planning. It's questioning the culture of founding a company around a cute idea with the aim of selling out in two years to become a millionaire. That is not what Hewlett and Packard were about. They built a company around engineering on the basis of a belief that they could provide a benefit over the long term.
If anything I'd say the weakness of the article lies in its evidence, which isn't really sufficient. It has one useful and accurate case study - Uber - but it really needs more than that to talk about any kind of trend. I rather think, though, that if the author had tried, he could have come up with lots of other examples. Uber was a great case study, though. It's 'innovative' and 'disruptive'...where you read 'disruptive' to mean 'doesn't see the point in complying with regulations meant to ensure public safety'. There's a _reason_ taxi services are strongly licensed and regulated virtually the world over (and you probably wouldn't feel great taking a cab in a place where they aren't).
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is Silicon Valley at all non-toxic and do they have any morals left?
Fixed it for you.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? He's an AC & an apathetic/cynical dimwit. Soulskill does well to remind us of our lost humanity & the soullessness our western society is headed towards, if not already there. Quoting bullshit wikipedia 'laws' at us also doesn't change the facts or change anything in actual fact.
In any case, SV is just a reflection & extension of our society as a whole, just another symptom of what may be the beginning of the end, if we're not past the point of no return already..??? (who says every discussion post can't end with a ? ? :)
Check your premises (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think we live in a capitalist society, think again.
Re:Nothing is broken except how you see things (Score:1, Insightful)
"Capitalism may have it's flaws, but it is better than any previously tried system over the last 6,000 years of recorded history. "
I have noticed that many people who praise capitalism is often not realising they are praising a system that arent anymore. Capitalism today is not the capitalism you saw 20-40 years ago, when the economy flourished. Everything was more regulated back then. The industry was regulated, the banks where regulated(take the glass stegal act.) Unions was much stronger. Income inequality was waaaay smaller, jobs wasnt outsourced to cheap 3rd world countries where people want to work for pennies. Companies wasnt as focused on profit maximizing, low wage jobs didnt pay soo low that people still had to ask for food stamps, or lived inside tents in the woods because their paycheck was soo small they couldnt pay rent(hello walmart: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/19/walmart-warehouse-workers_n_1989121.html )
Capitalism today is failing bigtime. Cooperation turn in record profit numbers yet keep firing people and outsource the jobs to low wage countries. CEO paychecks explode while the lower and middle incomeclass becomes poorer. Loopholes are being used by everyone to prevent paying taxes, that funds schools, healthcare, fire and policedepartments and more. Right now our capitalistic system is soo focused on how to maximize their short term profit, that they dont realize(or dont care) what they are doing to the system in the long run.
Take Apple. If there was no big consumerbase in the west who would buy their phones? Not their chinese workers because they dont get paid near enough to afford such a phone. Like soo many other big companies Apple want to sell to a rich consumerbase that we have in the west, but they dont want to pay to have such a consumerbase. They expect other companies to make sure we have jobs that pays us enough to afford a iphone, so they can skip that important step and pay poor chinese people to produce their stuff instead. Problem today is that the outsourcing of productionjobs have skyrocketed. Everyone want to sell to the western consumerbase, but noone want to pay that consumerbase enough to be able to consume. They all expect others to lift that burden, and that is not happening atm.
So before you praise capitalism think about what kind of capitalistic system you are praising. Is it the capitalistic system of today that outsource productionjobs, and find tax loopholes, or is it the capitalistic system of yesterday.
Re:Short answer no, (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I agree with the author. Tech is a malignant leech on society, unlike wholesome industries such as finance or insurance.
You forgot the law industry. But in all honestly, sci-fi has shown us everything from tech utopias like Star Trek to tech dystopias like 1984 with omnipresent telescreens with hidden cameras and microphones - though I'm sure there's even "techier" dystopias. Don't get me wrong, technology is great progress but it's also great progress for those who want to surveillance and control other people. And the big difference from the past is that computers and robots are obedient to a fault, they'll never rebel, never refuse to carry out an order, never lead an insurrection no matter what rights they violate or atrocities they're commanded to commit. Here in Norway 2/3rds of the population no longer make any adjustment to their tax returns - the government already knows everything and will hand you a pre-filled tax statement that you check.
Income tax? The company you work for report your income, unless you're self-employed. Own property? Bank accounts? Stocks? Car? Boat? Bought or sold any of those? All domestic registries report in and all linked to the same person id, you just need to report foreign holdings/transactions. Oh yes and marriage status and children, so you get your tax breaks. About 94% of all payments now happen electronically, somewhere between 50% and 60% of the population is on Facebook that we know stores everything indefinitely, there's electronic toll roads that read car signs and for regular travel most now have electronic tickets linked of course to your ATM card or your cell phone - that are all registered to a person, so even if you left your cell phone that everybody carries at home you're likely tracked somehow.
Now I don't see any particular reason to want to overthrow the government, but I sure think it's going to get harder and harder to organize anything big without the government's knowledge - at least a government that doesn't care one bit about personal privacy like authoritarian regimes generally don't. I'm pretty sure the TV is just a TV though and not a two-way telescreen, but in pretty much every other way imaginable the government knows far more about me than they did as little as 20 years ago. And a lot of the things they don't log today, is only because the logging switch is set to off. If the watchdogs are silenced, it's as easy as flipping a switch and more data comes streaming in than ever before in history.
Re:As someone who lives in the NYC tri-state... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it broke? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry but the story's author made superb points about the fact that corporations (specifically Google) do what's good for them, and if its good for society great, if not, tough. Her specific and very personal example of the need for protecting some people's identity from a gamut of real threats including employers, future employers, bigots, religious fanatics, and a government that is perfectly happy to march up your posterior to ascertain what it was you had for dinner last night, should be a critical concern to every card carrying geek breathing today. You can't possibly sit there with that smug "Capitalism will fix everything" look on your face and tell me that the global corporation as it currently exists and the IP laws, and Banking laws, and near gutting of our system of government that said corporations have inflicted on society are a positive things. Every system that deals with primates needs to inspire the best in, and account for the worst in, said primates. Pure Socialism and pure Capitalism are equally bankrupt in the fact that they first assume people are saintly won't make fertilizer out of one another to get what they want (and history is sadly chock full of examples to the contrary.)
I believe that Capitalism is a healthy part of future workable system, there will always be a need for people to interact and gain mutual value from those very interactions. The question is how do you balance that needs of the one with the needs of the many. With 7 billion of us maybe 11 billion by the end of the century, you are going to have to make some very pointed tradeoffs between personal rights and civil liberties and social responsibility and personal integrity. All of that not withstanding the exploding technology threatens all aspects of traditional commerce and the integrity of the social fabric. What happens when we have nanotechnology, and the only things of value are IP, energy and raw atomic feed stocks? There will be no labor, save artistic self expression or side economies. No production per se (yes machines will work but not people.) How do you run your Capitalism in such a place? How do you prevent the machines recycle all the people for their carbon?
We need to invent a future that is conducive to being human, and the time for such invention is running out ever more quickly. We need to ask hard questions about how we preserve the best in what it means to be human in the face of what it will mean to become trans-human. As the interesting stuff happens more and more outside of the meat in our heads, how do we address the deepest aspects of who and what we are and how will we protect that from being ground up in the sausage machine of an automated economy which ultimately transcends that ability of human beings to manage or even impact in any meaningful way.
Your arrogance at not bothering to get what this woman is saying, and the vital importance of trying to see past your own prejudices with regards to evolving human social dynamics is at least disturbing. You represent the problem solvers and here you are being part of the problem. Those guys running the corporations. They're just like you and me, only they are playing the corporation game, and what kind of social engineering is called for to reward those players for improving the human condition and not subjugating it. People are mostly cattle told what they will want, eat and think by talking head in little boxes. I do not thrill to riding with a race of Pavlovian knucklehead as they meet their fates head on.
Re:If other people want what you want (Score:5, Insightful)
He isn't wrong though.
People are not looking at the bigger picture when they make their purchasing decisions for several reasons:
1) They don't understand what cyberspace *is* yet, how their actions, and others actions, can have real tangible effects on their "real" lives.
2) They have a poor understanding of privacy, anonymity, it's true value to all parties, and Game Theory.
3) Apathy. I'm too small to make any meaningful difference anyways, so I will just continue to act against my best interests in the long term for short term gains in transient happiness and feelings of security.
4) I'm too poor to shop at someplace else other than Walmart. I have to save my pennies, regardless of the fact that continuing to give money to businesses that outsource jobs, has real and tragic effects on all people back at home, which ultimately affects how many pennies I get paid in the first place.
5) It really is a pretty shiny....
6) Huh? Watevs. I don't like peeps that use like big words and shit always thinking there better or something. I got swag, yolo muthafucka
The death of America, and Freedom, will be because of apathy and complacency. I've a hard time really blaming them either, since there is an awful lot to be cynical about. Only until this generation actually has to suffer, really suffer, for Freedom will they finally understand, revolt against our oppressors (peacefully I hope) and then allow future generations to make all the same mistakes all over again.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest is some pseudo-socialist rant. Move along, nothing to see here.
I think that's a hand wave on your part. You're just slapping a label on the author's assertions and then jettisoning them without analyzing it and providing a reasoned response. The author is simply stating that every candle lights the darkness around it -- but it still casts a shadow. The question here is not whether Google (or any company, organization, or group) has done wrong, but whether the good outweighs the bad. And has it?
Is the ability to search the internet using a proprietary algorithm and database almost instantly worth the steady erosion of our privacy and corresponding loss of civil liberty? Our founding fathers made the vote anonymous for a reason -- and in that day and age, the right to peacefully assemble was also the right to anonymously assemble. Nobody back then anticipated that every public moment of our lives would be stored in a giant machine, and be replayable at the touch of a button in perpetuity. The loss of anonymity means that people who might otherwise become politically active now don't. It means the vote itself is corrupted because people talk about it amongst each other less. It means the mass media gains more sway over popular opinion because what they watch on TV isn't going into a government database, unlike assembling for protest or discussion... which results in arrests and being placed on "no fly" lists. Google provides blogging services, and as a result of using them, many citizens have wound up on such lists. This is proven, documented fact, not "pseudo-socialist" ranting.
And the author is right: Technology can't fix social problems. And fundamentally, that's what we're discussing, and that's what you missed. Information Technology is fundamentally about improving reliability, efficiency, and speed of digital systems. It says nothing about the process we're making more efficient or reliable. What would you say to speed cameras everywhere? Or black boxes that record everything you do and then fine you? Be honest with yourself: How many weeks would it take before you were hopelessly in debt if every single moment you spent behind the wheel was audited by a police officer... forever?
Sudden advances in IT expose latent social problems. Our legal system doesn't move as quickly as our industry does, and so there's a gap between the time a problem (like privacy) is discovered, and a socially-acceptable solution is found and implimented. That gap is growing year over year because our legal system isn't getting any faster, but our technology is. So you can wave your hand and say "nothing to see here", if you want... but truthfully, you're young and naive and that's what's on display here, not some insightful social commentary. There are real problems here, and although the author may not have articulated it as clearly as I have, it's still clear what his underlying point is.
Self-regulation has failed in almost every industry -- sooner or later, dollar signs flash in someone's eyes, and it doesn't matter whether it's ethical or not, only whether it's legal or not. And increasingly, what's legal and what isn't comes down to the balance in your bank account. Is that the society we want to live in? If the answer is no, then we need to start thinking about how to find a socially-acceptable way to even the differences between our ever plodding along legal system with an industry that measures progress in milliseconds.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah, Rome is burning, along with the rest of the world. We've been hearing that every day since our revolution.
Meanwhile your quality of life continues to go up, technology continues to improve, fewer people are starving, more people have access to increasingly effective medication, more of us are better educated than ever before... hell, even our wars are becoming less bloody.
Shit is far from perfect from any perspective, and it never will be, but we keep trudging forward.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would help if we actually had a left wing. Currently, we've got a center-right and far-right wing. I'm admittedly on the far-left, making me a bit out of step with the rest of the country, but it's deeply frustrating to any socialist when people call Barack Obama, a center-right politician, a Marxist or socialist.
Obama is very friendly to Wall Street. Very, very friendly.
Re:'Social Justice' is a ridiculous concept (Score:4, Insightful)
Money that people pay for your service or product is exactly what you worth for society.
I disagree. Money has coercive properties. They are not as obvious as brute physical force, but they are there all the same. For example, people need to buy food to live. Convince them that somehow they aren't trapped and trap them in a cycle where they have to give you all their money just to get enough food to survive, and nearly everybody will perform whatever work you require in exchange for it. They will give you any amount of money if you have all the food.
There are numerous other ways in which money can coerce people into doing things that aren't generally productive or helpful. I think it's very easy for very money focused economies to fall into local maxima from which they cannot escape because the people who have the most money are able to use the coercive power of money to erect barriers that prevent the system from leaving the local maxima.
What you are repeating is standard libertarian dogma. And while I'm very sympathetic to the libertarian position, I think this is one blindspot in libertarian philosophy.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Google+ doesn't want me to use a handle. I'm a queer/transgender female so that's offensive.
You obviously read enough of The Fucking Article to have seen this part:
As a queer/genderqueer woman, victim of abuse, and someone who was (at that very time) experiencing online harassment and bullying, I was very vocal within Google for the need for Google+ to support pseudonymity.
Her words speak for themselves.
You haven't done anyone a service by summarizing.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever been to Silicon Valley? I live here and can tell you that the answer is "no". SV is not like Detroit with 3 companies that make up the economy, it's pretty much everything you can think of dealing with technology. Why do you rate such a massive amount of technological knowledge on 2 companies in the valley? For instance, Rambus is here as well as every other company designing computer memory. All of the companies designing switching equipment are here also. That's right, Ericsson (formerly Redback and Entrisphere also), Brocade, Cisco, AT&T are all here designing and building the switching equipment for your phones, PCs, servers, and more. Apple is here, as is Dell, HP, Oracle, IBM, and countless others that design and build everything from PDAs to massive servers. Yes, all designed and developed in SV as well as most of the software you use to run on them.
Okay, piss and moan about Google's lack of morals. Why not also pay attention to the products and services they provide for "FREE" to cynical douche bags like the author of TFA? Don't like Google for their morals, simple answer is don't use their products and tell others the same. That's how the free market works you know, we have the power as consumers to either keep companies in business or put them under in time.
And look, I'm as cynical as the rest (maybe more) when it comes to Government. You can check my post history if you have doubts. But companies are not the same (at least currently in the US) as the Government. People still have power in the market, but you have to be smart enough to use the power you have.
So the answer again is "No", you obviously have no idea what Silicon Valley is or does to make such an ignorant argument. Come visit sometime, surprisingly most of the people you meet here are very courteous and helpful. I will warn you to keep the arrogant attitudes at home though, pricks are frowned upon here and it's a very big place.. easy to get lost if you get my meaning.
Re:In a word, YES! (Score:3, Insightful)
My vacuous twaddle is just my own opinion. I may be wrong. I may have observed the wrong sample of reality to come up with my opinions. Sorry.
That said, my use of the word "soul" shouldn't be construed as some mystical mumbo-jumbo. I mean simply our seemingly unique human capacity to use reason to discover the nature of the universe... which capacity we frequently ignore as we become emotional about issues and circumstances. I'm not sure if you've read the book "The Black Swan" but it has a few great sections on common logical fallacies that are based in emotional mechanics of our brains. Very cool stuff. And yet we clearly are able to transcend that emotionality and move to rationality.
I just believe (again based on limited evidence) that most people choose moral relativism, capitalism, American culture etc. because it is emotionally easy, not because they have thought clearly and rationally about it.
Re:If the Silicon Valley is toxic ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... well ...
Please stop using the PC / Tablets / Smartphones - for many of the hardware were designed in Silicon Valley
Please stop using many of the software that you are using - including technologies that enable you to surf the Net
Without the Silicon Valley - and many of its offspring around the world - the author of TFA can whine all he wants, on a column on his local newspaper - if the editor of his local newspaper grant him a column, that is
There are many more valid ways to alter alter history and society than the tired old, "Don't buy it, don't use it" line. That type of strategy gives greater voice to those who have more money and power already. In other words it generally leaves the power firmly in the hands of those who already have power, are perfectly happy with the status quo, and thus have no urge to see the existing problems fixed.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:5, Insightful)
With that out of the way, why do people neglect the power they have as consumers in the market?
I have only one question for you: Do you feel powerful?
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Social justice is a code word for Marxism. 'Nuff said.
Another hand wave. I never used the "code word". I also didn't use the secret handshake or the special hand signal. What I did ask for was that people consider the consequences of their decisions, politically and personally. In other words, I asked for personal responsibility. People like you remind me that there is a growing subset of americans that think any call for responsibility is socialism, communism, marxism, etc. They believe that consequences can be reduced to dollar signs. Something is good and responsible if it makes a profit, and bad and irresponsible if it results in a debt.
I don't know what you want to call that ideology, but it is morally debased and corrupt to its very core: There is more to life than money.
Welcome to the Real World (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the way it is with everything, the way it has always been and sadly, the way it will always be until we're genetically altered as a species to have an unquestioned hive mentality. It only seems unusual when one gets initially involved with a sense of excitement about their own dreams and plans, eventually realizing they were wrong for imagining it to be otherwise. Humanity operates politically as a political animal and has never been a meritocracy -- although it tries to be on occasion. The real challenge is to find a way to constantly improve something and allow everyone involved in the problem to buy into the decision making process. Anything else will only result in variations of the original complaint skewed with a different perspective.
So what will you actually do? It has to actually be something.
Speeches that allow you to feel proud about your comments are more about the pride and little about the (conveniently vague) idea. The idealistic rant is a classic condition of human nature. It's been done by everyone at one time or another and not unique to any time, place or culture. Stating the obvious while thinking others were unaware of the obvious and thinking they have become impressed with your enlightened insight is one aspect of what the Greeks meant by being sophomoric. After stating the obvious, you then "walk away" and leave it for someone else to resolve while feeling like a genius for somehow equating the stating of a problem with the offering of a solution.
Personally, my beliefs presently lack the cynicism anyone may wrongly infer from this post and embrace a positive outcome for societies in the long run, maybe even close to what was explained in the summary. But that will occur only if there isn't suppression of communication or a suppression of disparate groups of people with differing opinions independently trying to work with each other to improve their condition, including a process that prevents one of those groups from becoming a monopoly; or a way to prevent a bunch of royal asshats wandering around with nothing to do except to question people's motives -- every time they pursue something they happily enjoy doing or find interesting -- explaining this is not in the best interest of society.
The utopian scenarios I'm told I should pine for instead of pursuing personal happiness, never seem to really explain themselves well enough to prevent it from deteriorating into some one-size-fits-all master plan empowering a committee of well meaning self appointed leaders to decide what's best for everyone to do. Also, they tend to pay lip service to people's feedback (in the best case scenario -- usually, they disappear) and becoming an inhumane version of the original complaint in TFS. If you want to prevent it from happening, well ... then (cough) ... you should do something about it.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's so wrong with socialism? Why is it always an insult?
It's not like we ever had communism yet either. Every attempt at communism was just an elaborate tribute to Orwell's Animal Farm. It's not like capitalism is the clear winner, in terms of both economic and moral success.
Both are deeply flawed implementations of their ideologies where corruption and greed have perverted the movement towards the original positive ideas of freedom and equality (equality in the sense of human worth and opportunity, not material distribution).
It's so obvious to me that some aspects of society need to be to treated like critical infrastructure and all attempts must be made to remove corruption from it. Step one, is removing profit.
I've lived long enough to realize that we don't even have capitalism. That's a farce. Any attempts and pleas to even move towards fairness, sanity, social justice, or basically towards the center of capitalism is perceived as far left socialism. Which again, as an insult makes no sense.
Hmmm, what's that political term about windows? Oh yeah, Overton.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Social Responsiblity (Score:5, Insightful)
Nyet. What I'm objecting to is the GGP up there saying that government-run wealth redistribution isn't done at the point of a gun. It's just fairy-tale nonsense.
It's only fairy-tale nonsense if you fail to realise that wealth-maintenance is also done at the point of a gun. It is only possible to be wealthy because society enforces your property rights at the point of a gun. If you want to be reductionist, every social interaction is at the point of a gun because if you stray too far from accepted behaviour then either society collectively or an individual will shoot you. That's a pointless and irrelevant argument and it's just as pointless in this situation.
Re:For the umpteenth time... (Score:1, Insightful)